


A Dream Within A Dream

by Princess of Geeks (Princess)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s04e10 Beneath the Surface, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-06
Updated: 2010-05-06
Packaged: 2017-10-09 08:25:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess/pseuds/Princess%20of%20Geeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When their identities were Carlin and Jonah, Jack and Daniel's relationship took a new turn. Back on Earth, they deal with the fallout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dream Within A Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Beta thanks to Justine and Jumpuphigh.

_"I have written my life on your skin"_

\--Steve Miller Band, "Book of Dreams"

^^^^

Jack stood outside Daniel's apartment door, hand lifted to knock, a bottle of merlot under one arm.

_Should have called first,_ he thought.

He knocked.

Ten heartbeats, four breaths. The door opened.

Daniel wasn't wearing his glasses, and he needed a shave. For a heartstopping moment, reality shifted, slid, and crashed around Jack. Flames from open braziers flickered on Carlin's sweat-sheened skin, and Jonah had to lick, had to taste, adding one more sensory layer to the overwhelming heat of skin pressed to skin.

Jack blinked, and Daniel's pained, blue gaze came back into focus.

"Come in," Daniel said, and then his gaze fell away, to somewhere around Jack's feet. Jack brushed past him, in, and set the wine bottle on the little dining table.

"You want to order pizza?" Jack said over his shoulder, not looking. The front door closed with a quiet snick.

"I was thinking Chinese," Daniel said, dry and neutral.

"Yeah, that's better," Jack said. He stood there, leaning on his fists. There were two big dead candles on a platter on the table, giving off a faint scent of vanilla. There were a dozen editions of the _New York Times_, still in their plastic sleeves and stacked like kindling, evidence of the team's recent absence, and beside them a blank legal pad, three pens, and an empty coffee mug. And, now, the wine bottle. Jack sucked in one deep breath, let it out, and pushed off the table to find a corkscrew. He knew just where it would be -- in the second kitchen drawer in from the doorway, right next to the cooktop.

Daniel's quiet, terse voice drifted from the living area. He was ordering lo mein and potstickers and Kung Pao shrimp and Happy Family from the little familiar place, six blocks away. He was ordering, as he always did, in Vietnamese, because it was a Chinese food place run by Vietnamese people. Only in America, Jack thought. Daniel confirmed the food order, and then methodically read the numbers off his credit card in English, a strange juxtaposition. Jack remembered, vaguely, that there were two fives in his own wallet; he could take care of the tip if he were quick and caught the door when the guy showed up. It would be Tien, the younger son, most probably. Since it was a Thursday.

Daniel's voice fell silent. Jack heard the tick of the receiver hitting the cradle.

"I talked to Carter already. Yesterday," Jack found himself saying. The spiral of the corkscrew dug satisfyingly into the cork. The sunset's shadow was sharp on the wall over the piano. The cork creaked. "Nothing happened with her; you have a right to ask and I know you won't. So I'm telling you."

"I have a right to ask?" Daniel's voice was still so dry and bloodless. Setting down the cork and the corkscrew, Jack turned around, reluctant to see Daniel's expression, but finding intolerable the fact that his only connection to Daniel at the moment was that carefully leached voice.

"Jonah cared for her very much," Jack made himself say, using his former, memory-stamped name deliberately, and looking right at Daniel. Who was standing there by the sofa, his hand on the phone. "They were very friendly. Even affectionate. But nothing happened between them."

"I wondered," Daniel said, looking down. "I know I shouldn't wonder, but I do. Did."

Jack kept his voice even. "I don't know if she wanted more to happen, and she was just distracted by all the work we had to do there, or if she thought of Thera and Jonah as friends. Close friends. I don't know. We didn't get that deep into it. There or here. But regardless. Nothing happened."

Daniel turned to face him squarely, frowning, and met his eyes. Finally.

Here it was, exposed for them both to see, now. Here it was, to be set aside or taken up. That was, after all, why Jack had come over tonight. Because it might be over, or it might be just beginning, but it wouldn't be, couldn't be, ignored.

^^^^

Thera left them in the after-hours rendezvous place, after promising to report on any more dreams she might have, and exacting a promise from Jonah that he would pay attention, too. She squeezed Jonah's hand and nodded at Carlin and turned away, walking briskly and tall and surefooted down the cluttered corridor between the huge hulks of the boilers, glancing sharply from side to side, through the steamy dark, making sure the three of them were really still alone.

"How long were you foreman?" Carlin said in a low voice, drawing Jonah's gaze from Thera's form as it receded into the flickering shadows. She was so beautiful. Jonah wanted to stay near her, wanted to protect her and keep her safe. She really didn't need him to, that was clear, but he felt that all the same.

"I'm not sure. A while," Jonah said, and he met Carlin's eyes again. "You're right, you know. Now that I think about it," he added. "My memories of the mines are pretty vague. Shouldn't they be sharper? Shouldn't I know more?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Carlin said, leaning closer, and Jonah found his gaze shifting to the other man's mouth. His lower lip had been split and was now barely healed. Jonah thought back to their altercation over Kagan and her stinginess with the bread, her obvious jealousy of Thera. The fight was so sharp and clear. Now, that was a memory that was real. Not like his hazy vague memories of being foreman, or loading dirty ore in the mines. A chill ran up his back, like a touch of the cold outside.

"Your lip all right?" Jonah asked, and brought his hand up. He touched the healing scab lightly with his middle finger, and when Carlin's eyes fell shut, he cupped Carlin's jaw and stroked Carlin's lip and chin with his thumb. Why did he want, so very much, to heal what he'd broken, to soothe what he'd stirred up? Why did this man exert such a pull on him? Why did Jonah want to touch him like this? He didn't feel this kind of a physical pull for Thera, this kind of ache to stroke, to hold. Shouldn't he feel it for her too? It wasn't wise, he suspected, with no evidence at all but an uneasy ping on some deep level, to get involved like this with Carlin. It made no sense, for him to reach out this way, physically. But his desire to get close was strong. He wanted that. To be very close. To Carlin.

Carlin's lips were so soft under his fingers.

When he paused his gentle movements, Carlin's eyes opened. "I'm sure I know you," Carlin hissed, and he sounded frustrated. "I have no real proof, but I'm sure of it. And I'm, I'm-- drawn to you, and maybe I shouldn't be."

"I know," Jonah said, "I know exactly what you mean." He leaned in. He licked his own dry lips, and then he kissed Carlin's mouth, gently, and put his tongue to the sore place where his thumb had just been. "I'm sorry for this," he whispered, against Carlin's lips, and Carlin's hands closed on his shoulders. Carlin kissed him back.

"It doesn't hurt now," he said.

^^^^

"So I guess by coming over it means you're really okay with talking about it," Daniel said, sounding reluctant and amazed at the same time. He was poking in his empty Kung Pao shrimp container with his chopsticks. Jack wasn't sure if it was just Daniel's insistence on cultural accuracy, or if he'd lived in Asia at some point, or what. But he always used chopsticks if they ate Japanese or Chinese. Jack just used a fork. Chopsticks made him feel ridiculous, like a poser.

Jack said, cautiously, "I think after everything that's happened it would be pretty ridiculous for me to not be okay with talking?"

"I think after everything that's -- happened--" and Daniel's voice hitched -- "you'd be perfectly within your rights to not want to talk about that mission ever again." Daniel was still not meeting Jack's eyes. That bothered Jack.

Jack reached out, and Daniel was sitting so close to him, there on the sofa, that it was an easy distance. He reached out and grabbed Daniel by the shoulder.

"How can I ignore what happened? You can't be serious. How could I possibly ignore... that?"

^^^^

Carlin was hard through the heavy material of his trousers, and he obviously had nothing on underneath them. Jonah kissed him greedily, and at the same time got acquainted with the shape of his erection through the fabric, and realized Carlin was pulling him closer and then worming his hand through the front of Jonah's own pants. Carlin's breaths were coming faster, through his deep, intent kisses, and he braced around Jonah's shoulders with his free hand.

"Stand up," Jonah gasped. "You're going to get me off right here and we can't walk around in soaked pants all week."

Carlin chuckled into his mouth, a teasing vibration that went right to Jonah's dick. "Planning ahead, are you? I like that..."

They stood. Leaning against the wall, holding tight, drowning in each others' eyes, it didn't take long. They jerked each other off eagerly, and at the end, as they found their peak, Jonah rested his bent head against Carlin's cheek.

After, Jonah gently hitched his trousers up around his hips and moved in for more of Carlin's incendiary kisses, and when they both had their clothes all back in order they held each other, hands roaming, grasping, still kissing, reluctant to end it even though the simple sex had been shatteringly good, a full and complete release. At least it had been for Jonah, and the ecstatic expression on Carlin's handsome face indicated it had been the same for him. It made Jonah hungry for more. Hungry in the way he craved the daylight that seeped through the skylights, and fire's warmth, and larger rations.

"Hey. I know the foreman, of the crews that unload the coal carts. He owes me one," Jonah said, between kisses.

"And he has a cubby of his own," Carlin said, catching on immediately and smiling against Jonah's mouth.

"Tomorrow; right after evening lineup. You know where his place is?"

"I know," Carlin said. Jonah ran his thumb over the scab on Carlin's lip one more time before releasing him.

^^^^

Daniel frowned, and Jack wanted to brush aside his chopsticks and the carton, leap up with enough force to scatter the cushions and turn over the coffee table and tackle Daniel, fold him close, hold him tight, strain him against his skin. He tried to content himself with squeezing Daniel's shoulder. "I have no desire to forget what happened," Jack insisted.

Daniel tossed his chopsticks on the table with a clatter and leaned back, all in one defeated movement. His lean took him away from Jack's grip, and it was hard not to grab for him and pull him back. Daniel reached under his glasses one-handed, to rub his eyes with a thumb and two fingers. It looked painful.

"I just... I can't believe it," Daniel said.

"Can't believe what?" Jack whispered. "That it happened, or that we're talking about it now?"

"Either. Both," Daniel said. And he put his palms on his knees and pushed himself up. Jack let him go, across the living room. Out onto the balcony.

Jack was relieved, actually, that Daniel didn't turn and yank open the front door and leave, which if he were upset enough, Jack figured he would do, even though it was his own place.

^^^^

Jonah was early to Lar's room, and when Lar excused himself, it was with a smirk. Jonah wondered if he'd watch to see who it was that Jonah was meeting, and if he did, Jonah didn't care. He sat, hard already, shifting awkwardly on the narrow, low cot, his knees too high, waiting for Carlin. He closed his eyes and put his hand over his dick, thinking about that mouth, those eyes, those hands. He'd washed this time, on a day that wasn't his turn, calling in another favor. At last he heard slow footsteps outside, and the door opening.

Carlin glanced around, taking in the small cluttered room, and he nodded approvingly. There was a chair next to the door, and before Jonah could suggest it himself, Carlin seized it and braced it at an angle under the door handle.

"Wouldn't want to be disturbed," Carlin breathed, and he stripped off his shirt. He'd washed too, Jonah could see, and it made his breath come fast, to know that Carlin had taken the trouble, that he'd cared to get ready. Jonah'd already shrugged out of his jacket and peeled off his thin shirt, while he was waiting. As Carlin came toward him, Carlin unfastened his trousers and let them drop. He stepped out of them gracefully and kept coming.

Jonah growled approval, and as soon as Carlin was within reach he grabbed his hips and pulled him in, steering Carlin to stand between his knees. He opened his mouth and tasted the tip of Carlin's erection, and Carlin rested his hands in Jonah's spiky hair and sighed.

His dick was gorgeous and big, and this felt at once so familiar and so shocking. Jonah closed his eyes and drank in smell and touch and again was struck by the unshakeable, bone-deep certainty that they had known each other before, that there was more to their mutual feelings than could be accounted for by the events of the last few days. Everything beyond the last week, everything further in the past, was a blur, but this was so real -- this warm stiff flesh in his mouth, the feel of Carlin's muscles under his palms, the hands caressing his hair.

"Jonah," Carlin breathed, and he rocked his hips, matching the rhythm Jonah was setting, and Jonah tasted him and sucked and took him deep and, finally, drank him down. Carlin leaned on Jonah's shoulder in the afterglow, then sank to his knees, panting. Jonah lay back to shove down his own trousers, and Carlin groaned and got on top of him, jamming himself head-to-foot against Jonah on the small uncomfortable bed. His hot mouth came down over Jonah's erection and Jonah groaned. Carlin sucked him, bracing over him so that Jonah could caress the now-soft dick and heavy balls while Carlin's mouth did amazing things with suction and heat. He smelled wonderful, warm and clean, and Jonah let his hips rock up into Carlin's mouth and nuzzled his face into his soft package. Toward the end, Jonah threw an arm around his hips and then seized and shook as his climax took him, and he rode it out by holding on tight. It was stunning. It was beautiful, the most beautiful thing in this dark cold place. Life in the midst of their people's winter, a winter which was a kind of death.

After he'd made Jonah come, Carlin stayed where he was, lying heavily, his head on Jonah's thigh, his groin pressed against Jonah's chest, his knees splayed.

Jonah's fingers roamed at will, exploring Carlin's firm ass and his muscled legs while Carlin scrubbed his face against Jonah's thighs, and, finally, sighed.

"Night sick," Jonah said, and lifted his head to press a kiss to Carlin's thigh. "What if there is no such thing? What if that's just what Brenna and the medics call it when people start to remember things? Real memories? Because dreams at night, while you sleep, are the first place it comes out -- the real stuff. The stuff they don't want you to believe in."

Carlin tensed as he talked, listening, taking it in. Then he heaved himself around to lie full length on top of Jonah again, but face to face. He searched his eyes, then kissed him again, long and lingering.

Carlin whispered, "Then that's what we really are. Night sick."

"Yeah," Jonah said, cupping his jaw. How could this man be so dear to him already? How could he feel like he'd known him forever? Carlin just now, within days, had come to Jonah from the shelter of Kagan's comparatively easy life in the kitchens; Kagan had just gotten him trained on maintaining the boilers that fed the stoves that in turn fed them all. Why would Carlin throw all that aside to come to Jonah, and to Thera? The first clear memory Jonah had of this place here, this place that was Brenna's sector, was the fight they'd had over Thera's bread portion. Why would Carlin come to him after that? Why, at all?

Carlin kissed him again. "We really are night sick. It's real and we have it. Because it's not a sickness at all. It's our real memories, returning." He sounded a little stunned, as if saying Jonah's theory out loud served to confirm it for himself.

Jonah gazed into his eyes, felt Carlin's fingers in his hair. He knew this man. He had no proof, but he was sure of it. The vague memories and feelings were what was real. Not this strange difficult life mining coal, working night and day, desperately striving to keep the heat on, keep from freezing to death.

"So what do we do about it," Jonah said.

^^^^

Jack split the last of the merlot between their two goblets and followed Daniel out on the balcony.

"So what is it," Jack said, as Daniel accepted his wineglass with a glance that slid away from Jack's face to fasten on the horizon. "You didn't know I'd have no problem with a nice friendly blowjob between friends?"

Daniel shook his head. "It isn't that, so much as ..." He waved his hand, as words deserted him.

"Oh," Jack said. "That."

^^^^

The cost of their next rendezvous in Lar's room was a blowjob for Lar. But Carlin wouldn't care about that, would he? Was it important, if he found out? It seemed like it might be. It didn't seem like something Jonah should talk about.

Jonah wasn't sure why he felt Carlin shouldn't know, because when he considered doing it, as he was making the deal for the second use of the room, he had concluded, again, that it was no problem for him, no problem at all. Lar was a good man; fair and hardworking and utterly without subterfuge. It was a good trade, as far as Jonah was concerned. But for whatever reason, he didn't tell Carlin; just whispered the time and place to him when their paths crossed at morning lineup.

Then when Carlin came to him, to the same little private bed, Jonah had brought his own blanket, and he was already stripped and lying down. Just the thought of impending sex with Carlin made him hard.

Carlin grinned when he caught sight of Jonah. He barred the door with the chair, as before, and took off his clothes, but slowly this time. Jonah, hands behind his head, blanket around his hips, watched. Carlin's body was beautiful -- muscular and fit.

Naked, Carlin paced over to the bed and hesitated, and when Jonah didn't move he knelt on the floor and leaned over him and kissed him on the mouth. Jonah kissed him back, lingering and long. And when the kiss ended, he rested his hand on the side of Carlin's neck and reached under the pillow to show him the oil he'd managed to steal from the kitchen.

Carlin's eyes got wide. "Is that for me, or for you?"

"Well, we'll both end up enjoying it, but I was thinking you'd pitch and I'd catch."

Carlin shook his head a little and frowned.

"It's a figure of speech, right? I mean, you be on top. You do me," Jonah amended, wondering all over again where these words came from, these words he knew that no one else seemed to. Not like Thera's numbers and letters, but words that had no literal meaning here for the ideas that shaped themselves in his mind. But their meaning was clear to him. It was a mystery why the others couldn't understand his figures of speech. Carlin hitched up to sit on the edge of the cot, and pushed the blanket down around Jonah's ankles. "If that's all right with you," Jonah added.

Carlin was passing his hands over Jonah's skin, and he seemed happy to be doing that. "God, Jonah, of course. That's ... so hot."

"All right then."

^^^^

Jack drained his glass and then leaned over, with his forearms on the railing. He let the goblet dangle, idly wondering if he'd hear the eventual shatter if he dropped it the seven stories to the pavement below.

"You know," he said, calmly, "I've always wondered why anyone who's privy to the information always seems to think I'd have baggage with that in particular."

Daniel took a deep breath. Jack didn't look. He heard it. But when his peripheral vision caught Daniel moving, turning to face him, he leaned on one elbow on the railing and twisted to meet Daniel's eyes.

Daniel was standing there, facing him, looking resolute. The evening breeze tousled his hair. "Baggage -- with bottoming?"

Jack's mouth quirked in one-quarter of a smile. That was hard for Daniel to say. Funny, that. Jack waved his hand. "Not that a bunch of people know, but after Sara? During that year you were gone? I returned to my roots, shall we say."

Daniel frowned. "And, people think you have baggage?"

"Yeah, people tend to assume I'm oh-so-straight, which is, you know, good for my career, and sometimes they also tend to assume that I was raped in Iraq. I wasn't."

"Okaaay," Daniel said.

"Lotsa solitary, lotsa very hot stifling cells, lotsa unfun interrogations that violated the Geneva Convention, no rape."

Daniel's eyes were getting wider and wider. "I hadn't presumed to draw any conclusions. Really. Cross my heart."

Jack grinned. "Okay, so given all that, why is it apparently so hard for you to believe that Jonah wanted ... what he wanted?"

Daniel just stared at him.

^^^^

They met one more time in Lar's little room before the end.

Jonah brought the oil again, and Carlin, impatient, hot as flame, hot as ... summer... another word with no referent ... Carlin had him standing up that time, their bent knees cupping, Carlin's palms flat against the wall, Jonah reaching back to claw desperate fingers into his sweaty hips, their awkward grunts and groans of ecstasy barely stifled, if anyone had been listening.

At the end, his cheek pressed against the rough concrete, Jonah bit down on a shout as Carlin closed his slick fist around Jonah's dick to bring them off together.

Panting, they stumbled to the cot, leaving their clothes tumbled on the floor, and lay there longer than was strictly safe, touching and whispering and kissing.

"You like that," Carlin said, tenderly, thumbing Jonah's cheek. "When I push you against the wall like that, when I ... take you."

"So?" Jonah said, leaning up for a kiss. "You're a strong guy. I like to feel that."

"Okay," Carlin said, and pulled him in to a full-body, luxurious, breath-crushing hug. "Okay."

The very next day, Tor collapsed while on his rounds, leading to the overloading at that end of the sector, and Thera's quick action heroically headed off disaster.

When Brenna's commendation of the four of them turned, so very abruptly, into a rescue of her and of all of their fellow workers, along with the partial return of their memories, Jonah met Daniel's eyes before he directed Daniel, with a jerk of his head, to escort their erstwhile boss through the circle -- the stargate -- and on to the help that their own people could give her.

Yeah, it was a long day.

And when the dust had settled back on Earth and a couple of days had passed and Jack had talked, quietly, under the patient stars of a mild summer night in the parking lot, to a very rattled Carter, he'd also faced up to the fact that it was way, way past time to sit down with Daniel. Not just to talk. To have THE talk.

Jonah and Carlin had had a lot less trouble than their Tau'ri counterparts in acknowledging this thing that was between them.

^^^^

Daniel was still doing his fish-out-of-water impression, there on the balcony. "Please believe me: I didn't know, or assume, anything about Iraq. One way or another. I hadn't made any assumptions about that at all." He looked away and took off his glasses again and scrubbed his face. Then he looked down at them and studied them a while before putting them back on. He turned back to Jack. "But. Pardon me if I'm totally shocked and astonished that you're, what, bi? In this life? Not as Jonah?"

Jack straightened. "That's a word that works, sure."

Daniel was shaking his head. "That ... you're bi. I just... I guess I'm just..."

Jack said, hitching his thumb toward the door, "Can we do this inside?" And Daniel followed him, still looking as confused and bemused as Jack had ever seen him. When they were far enough into the living room to be out of any line-of-sight from the street or the nearby buildings, Jack turned to Daniel and put careful hands on his shoulders.

Jack said, "I think I get it, Doctor Jackson. It's not so much Jonah that's freaking you out as Carlin. He's what's really giving you chills. Freaking your shit. You didn't know you were like that. Could be like that."

"I guess not," Daniel breathed, and his glance flicked down to Jack's mouth and up to his eyes again. He shifted uneasily, and he put a cautious hand on Jack's wrist. Maybe he was also upset because Jack had moved in so close.

Memory, again, sharp and overwhelming -- holding Carlin, the rich scent of him, the rubbed, fucked feeling Carlin left him with. The way that release took him to unimagined peaks of intensity, and then let him sleep, let him rest in the sweetest, purest kind of peace. Left him ready to face whatever came next; whatever the day would bring. Because Carlin was there.

Jack moved one hand to Daniel's cheek. "All we know now is that we were good together back on that planet. In that place. And I can accept that. Can you?"

Daniel stared back, incredulous. Moving his thumb to Daniel's bottom lip, Jack stroked gently. That was how it all had begun, on that godforsaken ball of ice. Against all odds, without the barriers of the Air Force or the boy/girl preconceptions of their Earth society, they'd come together eagerly. Inevitably, even. Jack could still feel that energy. Could Daniel?

"It's just us," Jack whispered, and Daniel, whose eyes had fallen shut, opened them and looked at him again, with amazement and dawning hope.

"Do you still want to," Daniel whispered, and Jack smiled.

He led Daniel to the bedroom. He turned out all the lights but the little lamp by the bed. He didn't need to see to know exactly what he was doing.

Jack pulled Daniel over to the bed, and he didn't let go of his hand until Jack was seated and Daniel was standing before him. He undid Daniel's belt and his jeans and carefully pulled out his fast-hardening dick, letting boxers and denim bunch around Daniel's thighs. He closed his eyes as he took it into his mouth.

It tasted even better than he remembered. And Daniel's amazed, soft groans were music to his ears.

Daniel seemed to be holding back, and that was the last thing Jack wanted. He held onto Daniel's hips and urged him to fuck his mouth, pushed and pulled him into a steady intense rhythm.

After a while, Daniel gasped, "I'll come, right here; I can't hold it if you keep this up."

Jack smiled around Daniel's cock and kept pushing it.

When Daniel came, he groaned aloud and staggered. He clutched Jack's shoulders, hard, and Jack held him up by the hips. He tasted bitter and hot.

Jack eased him down, bracing him, getting their legs up on the bed and then pulling Daniel close. His own hardon pressed insistently against cotton and denim and the solid weight of Daniel. It felt splendid. Jack rolled his hips, once, getting a confused, overwhelmed groan from Daniel, a weak clutch of his hands, which made Jack chuckle. He locked his forearms around Daniel's ribs. Daniel groaned again and slid to partly sideways. Then he swore, and tried to raise himself, and Jack eased the hug to let him. Daniel got to his hands and knees and tossed his glasses on the nightstand. Then he collapsed again, this time more next to Jack than on him. Jack pressed in close. After a while he realized he'd synched his breathing to Daniel's.

He waited. He'd learned, there on the planet, that Carlin was always good for two. He listened to Daniel breathe, and let his hands roam as Daniel held him, and he gently stroked Daniel's sweaty skin, unbuttoning.

When Daniel's second hardon was pushing against Jack's hip, and Daniel's hands had lost their post-orgasmic looseness and were roaming, too, finding zippers and buttons, Jack got up on an elbow and found Daniel's mouth.

He'd loved this too -- the kissing, and he remembered Carlin's delighted muffled yelp of surprise the first time he'd kissed him after sex. They enjoyed each others' mouths for a while, letting the urgency build, and then Jack murmured, "How do you want it?"

Daniel muttered something, sounding impatient, and tugged at Jack's shoulder so he could get Jack's shirt over his head. During the kissing they'd managed to writhe out of their jeans. Daniel, frowning again, pushed at Jack's shoulder and Jack knew what that meant.

He turned over, smiling with a corner of his mouth, and Daniel said, "Oh, god," and ran warm eager hands over Jack's ribs and down his ass. Jack groaned and scrubbed his face into the mattress. Daniel's fingers left trails of fire along his skin.

Daniel was still touching him; now slow, now fast, never ticklish, even on his balls and the sensitive skin around his ass. It was perfect. Daniel knew him so well. Because of Carlin.

Daniel said, urgently and low, "You take me apart, you know it? No one has ever gotten under my defenses like this, no one but Sha're. Not the way you do. God, Jack, I can't believe it. I can't believe we're doing this again. Here. At home."

"Daniel. Do you need me to say it? Because I will if you need me to. If you need to hear it."

And Daniel laughed, and pressed his face against Jack's buttock, his whole body shaking. "Okay," he said, finally, "do you mean, 'I love you,' or do you mean 'Fuck me now'?"

Which made Jack laugh, and he wiggled his ass a little and spread his knees wider and said, "You know it's both."

Daniel got quiet, and then he said, "Yes. Yes, I do know." And he reached, and leaned, and Jack heard the scrape of a drawer, and soon enough Daniel had one hand on his ribs and the fingers of the other in his ass, and Jack stopped thinking for a while, just lay there and felt the obliterating pleasure of Daniel making love to him.

It seemed like a splendid luxury -- back to using the thick lube they could get on Earth, instead of making do with the thin oil, and Daniel seemed to like that too, based on how he moaned and gripped Jack's thighs, playing with the depth and the pressure and the speed of his strokes. Jack let himself dissolve into the hypnotic rhythm, the deep thrumming pleasure of it, and just put himself in Daniel's hands the way he'd put himself in Carlin's.

At the end Daniel pulled them onto their sides, and he balanced, holding Jack to him, speeding up his strokes, pressing Jack's thigh up out of the way. When he came, it was with a muffled shout, and Jack smiled and tightened his hand around his own dick and came right after Daniel. As the climax tailed off, Daniel pulled Jack in against him and Jack wrapped his arms around Daniel's arms, eyes still closed.

Beautiful.

After a long time, Daniel stirred, and found a box of Kleenex on the bedside table, and wiped his hands and wiped Jack up a little and then gathered him in again and put his mouth against Jack's sweaty neck. Jack just reveled in the warmth and the afterglow, stroking Daniel's arms, enjoying the little settling adjustments that rubbed Daniel's soft dick and balls against his ass.

Daniel said, "Um, look, I don't mean to be greedy, but since I guess we've decided to keep doing this, now that we've discovered we can, do you think I'll ever get to bottom?"

Jack pretended to think it over even as the words sent a little zing down his spine and through his completely sated groin area.

"Hmm, I don't know...... maybe." He kept his voice calm, but actually? He was a little surprised. Carlin had been so single minded, so eager. He'd acted like an exclusive top. But Jack was used to split-second re-evaluations. "I think we could probably work something out. Maybe."

Daniel laughed again, knowing he was being played, and stroked Jack's shoulder with his stubbly chin. Jack closed his eyes, remembering Carlin's intent expressions, remembering the dreams. He thought he'd give a lot to keep hearing Daniel's happy laughter. It warmed him right through, like wine. Like sunlight. Daniel said, his voice warm with pleasure, "Nobody has a clue about you, do they? Not really."

Jack tightened his arms. "Nobody but you, Doctor Jackson. Nobody but you."

end.


End file.
